Regional Activities on Remote Sensing in Asia 
-Presented to Special Session SS-8 on 
"How to promote remote sensing in developing countries?" 
Shunji Murai 
Institute of Industrial Science 
University of Tokyo 
7-22 Roppongi, Minatoku 
Tokyo 106 Japan 
ABSTRACT 
As the general secretary of Asian Association on Remote Sensing (AARS) since 1981, 
the author has organized twelve annual base Asian Conference on Remote Sensing (ACRS) up 
to now. At every ACRS, the author used to organized a special session on "how to promote 
remote sensing in Asia? " as well as general conference where key representatives from 
AARS member countries used to exchange their ideas how to promote remote sensing in 
Asian region. Murai Laboratory conducted by the author has many experiences for 
international training and cooperations for joint research. The paper summarizes such 
experiences or discussions with respect to developing countries. 
INTRODUCTION In developing countries, organization of research 
projects is not well conducted because of less 
supervisors and less experiences. Therefore 
technical transfer needs to accompany with 
supervisorship which is provided from developed 
countries. 
Most developing countries have the following 
problems. 
a. Lack of budget 
b. Lack of experts 
c. Lack of education and training 
d. Lack of supervisors 
e. Military control 
f. Lack of maps and statistics 
Murai Laboratory has continued to donate a 
Japanese personal computer set with complimentary 
softwares to developing countries every year 
including Thailand, Vietnam, Mongolia and 
Though developing countries are dependent on Indonesia until now, together with a Japanese young 
natural resources, there is few maps to survey the assistant for supervising and coworking. This is 
inventory and to follow the change. This is the good highly appreciated even though the donated money is 
reason why remote sensing can play a great role in not so big. 
developing countries. 
In case of accepting a trainee from a developing 
However remote sensing can become more country in a developed country, a work plan or 
powerful if it combines with GIS. In this sense, research plan should be well prepared together with 
technical transfer or international aid should be remote sensing imagery as well as other maps. In 
offered to developing countries. my experience, it has been more attarctive for the 
trainee to undertake the training or research with his 
1. Technical Transfer or her own problem and data. 
There are many international training courses. 2. Workshop / Seminar / Symposium 
But most of them are focused on training of 
operation with respect to hardware and software. There have been many workshops, seminars and / 
This would be alright for routine jobs. One must or symposia organized by international organizations 
note that any existing system should be needed a little including Asian Association on Remote Sensing 
modification or additional subsystems. In this sense, (AARS). 
training for software development is necessary. 
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